So you guys still remember those Drake A.I covers of NewJeans songs, right? And Carti singing Cupid? It’s safe to say A.I (artificial intelligence) has been having a moment on TikTok, with multiple individuals creating A.I covers with famous musicians covering some of the most random combinations – there’s Kanye singing Hey There Delilah, Playboy Carti singing Careless Whisper, and Michael Jackson singing I Feel It Coming???
Thing is, these aren’t just one-off posts from fans or meme pages. There are ENTIRE PAGES dedicated to creating some of the most perfect covers by the most anticipated artists. It might’ve started off as a joke with rappers “covering” Kpop, but now there are proper covers that actually sound good.
Here’s an example of a good one:
@tvmeds qm fez isso merece um prêmio( eu não fiz esse áudio#explore #billieeilish #songs #joji #glimpseofus #inteligenciaartificial
♬ som original – bel★
As some of the commenters have said, A.I IS GETTING A LITTLE TOO REAL! You just can’t tell us that cover isn’t really good and something you wouldn’t want to listen to. That said, it poses the question: could A.I. potentially take over the music industry?
These A.I. covers not only sound “realistic” – they’re cheap, quick and easy to make. Who wouldn’t love that? But do we think A.I. could completely take over the music industry? Yes. We’re all going to be eliminated and A.I. will take over the world!
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We’re kidding! Sure, these covers sound good and some are downright hilarious – but take over the music industry completely? Of course NOT! Let’s take a quick moment to remind ourselves what A.I. really is; it’s essentially a computer generated programme, designed to replicate human intelligence – no, it’s not a transformer that shoots out lasers and destroys all humans. A.I. is just a bunch of data, like every other computer programme or software.
Basically, what we’re saying is: A.I can’t even exist without the brilliance of a human to replicate anything. They’re not sentient beings – they don’t “care”, and don’t “feel” anything – so how could they possibly take over the music industry? Yes, there are multiple programmes out there that can generate a chord progression, melody or even drum patterns. But that isn’t exactly new.
There’s also Jukebox, that can create samples for you based on a particular artist or style. So if you want heavy metal performed in the style of Elvis, it may provide a sample that sounds like him doing so. But still – it’s not coming up with new music genres or original concepts; it’s just taking stuff that already exists and replicating them.
There’s just no denying that all the intricacies and nuances you get when physically recording a real instrument and voice are things a computer or A.I. can never replicate. There are so many things involved with a real audio recording – whether it be the colour and texture of the microphone, the sounds and squeaks when you move your hands across the guitar, and even the pitch bends of your voice – they are all very challenging for computers to process and, in all honesty, completely beyond the capabilities of artificial intelligence.
But one of the primary reasons we believe that A.I. will never completely replace musicians is a concept that even we humans find difficult to grasp when it comes to music. We’re talking about the “soul” in music, the whole concept of how music feels real or alive to us. It’s our feelings, and the capacity for emotion in humans.
There’s something much deeper with the raw emotion and feeling that another human being puts into making a song or recording that other people can feel when they’re on the other end of the recording, listening and experiencing it all.
A.I. might’ve covered Glimpse Of Us, but it wasn’t feeling anything while doing so. Yes, these covers sound good (on surface level), and as Billie and Joji fans, we’d undoubtedly get excited and be all “THAT’S SO GOOD, OMGGG” – but it’s still missing soul. There’s always something eerie and disconnected when you listen to any form of A.I. music.
It’s stupid to believe that A.I. isn’t going to make some fundamental changes to the music industry. But to believe that a programme or piece of software is going to wipe out all musicians as a whole is even more stupid.
But hey, maybe we’re completely wrong and 10 years from now, they really do take over – we’ll just have to wait and see.
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